Planning and orchestrating workflow instance migration

ABSTRACT

A method and information processing system manage workflow instance migration. A received migration plan indicates a set of workflow migration points associated with an initial workflow process model. The set of workflow migration points is associated with a set of workflow activities of the initial workflow process model. At least one workflow instance is selected from a set of workflow instances. A current migrateability state associated with the selected workflow instance is determined based at least on the set of workflow migration points. Migration of the workflow instance to a new workflow process model is granted in response to determining that the current migrateability state is set to migrateable. Migration of the workflow instance to the new workflow process model is prevented for at least a given amount of time in response to determining that the current migrateability state fails to be set to migrateable.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a divisional of and claims priority from prior U.S.patent application Ser. No. 12/562,487 filed on Sep. 18, 2009, now U.S.Pat. No. 8,498,890; the entire disclosure being herein incorporated byreference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to workflow systems, and moreparticularly relates to migrating workflow instances.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Workflow systems typically have a process model with multiple instanceswhich are concurrently operating according to this model. If the processneeds to be modified a new process model is deployed and new instancescan be created with the new model. However, existing instances createdby the earlier model generally must run to completion against theircreation model version. This structure means that while new instanceswill pick up the process modifications, prior instances usually mustcontinue to run against the earlier process model. Long runningprocesses, which run for weeks or even months, emphasize this challengebecause of the long time periods during which the old and new models canoverlap. The limitation that instances generally must run to completionagainst the creation model is a significant impediment to theadaptability of the workflow model. The nature of long running processesmeans that it is possible that during the lifetime of a running processinstance changes to the process model may be required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one embodiment, a computer implemented method for managing workflowinstance migration is disclosed. The computer implemented methodreceiving a migration plan indicating a set of workflow migration pointsassociated with an initial workflow process model that is migrateable toa new workflow process model. The set of workflow migration points isassociated with a set of workflow activities of the initial workflowmodel. A least one workflow instance is selected from a set of workflowinstances. Each workflow instance in the set of workflow instances is aninstantiation of the initial workflow process model and is operating atleast one of activity in the initial workflow process model. A currentmigrateability state associated with the workflow instance that has beenselected is determined based at least on the set of workflow migrationpoints. Migration of the workflow instance to the new workflow processmodel is granted in response to determining that the currentmigrateability state is set to migrateable. Migration of the workflowinstance to the new workflow process model is prevented for at least agiven amount of time in response to determining that the currentmigrateability state fails to be set to migrateable.

In another embodiment, an information processing system for managingworkflow instance migration is disclosed. The information processingsystem comprises a memory and a processor communicatively coupled to thememory. A migration manager is communicatively coupled to the memory andthe processor. The migration manager receives a migration planindicating a set of workflow migration points associated with an initialworkflow process model that is migrateable to a new workflow processmodel. The set of workflow migration points is associated with a set ofworkflow activities of the initial workflow model. A least one workflowinstance is selected from a set of workflow instances. Each workflowinstance in the set of workflow instances is an instantiation of theinitial workflow process model and is operating at least one of activityin the initial workflow process model. A current migrateability stateassociated with the workflow instance that has been selected isdetermined based at least on the set of workflow migration points.Migration of the workflow instance to the new workflow process model isgranted in response to determining that the current migrateability stateis set to migrateable. Migration of the workflow instance to the newworkflow process model is prevented for at least a given amount of timein response to determining that the current migrateability state failsto be set to migrateable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying figures where like reference numerals refer toidentical or functionally similar elements throughout the separateviews, and which together with the detailed description below areincorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to furtherillustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles andadvantages all in accordance with the present invention, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one example of an operatingenvironment according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates an overall sequence flow for managing the migrationof workflow instances according to one embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a dataflow constraint example according to oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a control flow constraint example according to oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 shows one example of a wavefront according to one embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates four possible wavefront scenarios according to oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates an overview of generating a migration plan accordingto one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is an operational flow diagram illustrating one example oforchestrating migration of workflow instances according to oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 9 and 10 are operational flow diagrams illustrating variousexamples of processing an instance according to one embodiment of thepresent invention; and

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a detailed view of aninformation processing system according to one embodiment of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosedherein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodimentsare merely examples of the invention, which can be embodied in variousforms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosedherein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis forthe claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in theart to variously employ the present invention in virtually anyappropriately detailed structure and function. Further, the terms andphrases used herein are not intended to be limiting; but rather, toprovide an understandable description of the invention.

The terms “a” or “an”, as used herein, are defined as one or more thanone. The term plurality, as used herein, is defined as two or more thantwo. The term another, as used herein, is defined as at least a secondor more. The terms including and/or having, as used herein, are definedas comprising (i.e., open language). The term coupled, as used herein,is defined as connected, although not necessarily directly, and notnecessarily mechanically. Plural and singular terms are the same unlessexpressly stated otherwise.

Workflow application developers and system providers have adopted avariety of strategies to try to insulate their processes from theeffects of change. For example, a single logical workflow can be brokeninto dynamically reassembled pieces. This externalizes key parameters ofthe process into business rules, which can be changed on the fly, etc.However, it is impractical to design any, but the most trivial, workflowanticipating all the potential unforeseen changes that may be needed atsome point in the future. Most workflow developers, regardless of thework-arounds that are employed, will be faced with a situation wherethey will want to adapt pre-existing long running instances to new modelchanges.

Managing migration in a production environment with complex processmodels, and with hundreds or thousands of instances of business criticalapplications while maintaining continuous availability is a challengingproblem. In order to determine whether any given instance is migrateablefrom one process model to another, the run-time needs an in depthunderstanding of both process models. Any migration solution generallymust deal with a broad range of processes: process lifetimes can spanseveral orders of magnitude, need to be always available and may need tofollow strict compliance rules. At any given time only a fraction ofinstances may be in a migrateable state; instances which cannot bemigrated may be migrateable at some point in the future. (Any migrationmodel should not disrupt the continuous availability of the process.)

Various embodiments of the present invention provide a processesmigration model as a policy driven continuous, long running, process.The data necessary to evaluate whether any instance is currentlymigrateable at model creation time is captured and conveyed to therun-time environment in a migration plan. A migration administrator candefine migration policies, which configure the continuous migrationprocess. The continuous migration model explicitly addresses the fourmain problems of managing migration: scheduling, orchestration,evaluation, and execution. Designing migration as a continuous processitself enables process instance migration to be performed across models;maintain continuous process availability; and deliver a powerful,flexible migration model which can deal with a broad range of migrationscenarios. Using a policy model to fine tune the run-time migrationbehavior means that the same model's migration plan can be reused asmigration requirements change over time.

Operating Environment

According to one embodiment, FIG. 1 illustrates one example of anoperating environment/system 100 for managing workflow instancemigration. It should be noted that although FIG. 1 shows variouscomponents distributed on various information processing systems, one ormore of these components can reside on the same system or anothersystem. In another embodiment, all of these components can reside on asingle system as well. FIG. 1 shows one or more networks 102 that, inone embodiment, are wide area networks, local area networks, wirednetworks, wireless networks, and/or the like. In one embodiment, theenvironment 100 includes a plurality of information processing systems104, 106, 108 that are communicatively coupled to the network(s) 102.

In one embodiment, one information processing system 102 includes one ormore source process models 110 and one or more target process models112. The source model 110 can be an initial workflow process model andthe target model 112 can be a new or revised version of the source model110. In one embodiment, a workflow model 110, 112 is made up of asequence of activities, which are the discrete steps of the workflowmodel. A workflow model (e.g. bpel) has a variety of different activitytypes that the developer uses to create the workflow model. For example,one activity can invoke a service to obtain a customer's credit score,another activity can wait for a response, and a human task activity canwait for a human to approve/deny a credit request.

A workflow model can comprise branches, parallel flows, loops etc, allmade up of discrete activities. At run time a workflow system cansupport multiple instances of the workflow that are simultaneouslyrunning against the model. Each instance is running independent of theother instances and can be operating at different points in theworkflow. If a snapshot (wavefront 147) is taken of the state of anygiven instance it will be at some point in the workflow model, i.e.,operating one or more activities. The wavefront snapshot for an instanceindicates where in the model that instance is.

Since long running processes can run for very long times (days, weeks,even months) most of the time these instances are waiting for somethingto happen. Therefore, in one embodiment, the migration manager 148migrates instances when they are in this activity waiting state. Theinstance is “running”, but the activity is waiting for something tohappen. However, other embodiments migrate instances in other states aswell. So one instance is just the state of a particular “instance” of aworkflow process model that is currently running and part of that stateis what activity(s) it is currently “operating”. As will be discussed inmore detail below. A migration plan 132 identifies which activities inthe model are potentially migrateable. The migration manager 148 checksthe wavefront 147 against the migration plan 132 to determine whetherthis particular instance is migrateable (i.e., if all the activities,which form the current wavefront for that instance, are migration pointsaccording to the migration plan 132). If so the instance is migrateableand if not the instance is not migrateable. At any given time there canbe many instances running simultaneously. The migration managementoperations discussed below iterate over the pool of instances.

Another information processing system 106 includes a model comparator114, data analyzer 116, constraint generator 118, constraint analyzer120, constraint plan generator 122, and a migration plan generator 124.An additional information processing system 108 comprises a migrationplan analyzer 134, one or more migration policies 136, a customizedmigration plan generator 138, one or more customized plans 140, one ormore exclusion lists 145, one or more wavefronts 147, and a migrationorchestrator 142 comprising an instance evaluator 144 and an instancemigratory 146.

FIG. 1 and the sequence flow of FIG. 2 will be discussed together togive a general overview of the migration management and orchestrationprovided by various embodiments of the present invention. In oneembodiment, the model comparator 114 compares, at step 202, themigration source and target models 110, 112 to each other so that theregions of the source model 110 which are migration compatible with thetarget model 112 can be identified. This comparison generates one ormore deltas 126 between the migration source and target models 110, 112.The deltas 126 represent the differences between the migration sourceand target models 110, 112. The present invention is not limited to oneparticular technique for identifying changes between process models. Forexample, the models 110, 112 can be compared across multiple dimensionssuch as, but not limited to control flow changes, data flow changes,choreography changes, attribute changes, and the like.

The delta analyzer 116, at step 204, analyzes the deltas 126, i.e.differences, and based on this analysis the constraint generator 118, atstep 206, identifies the migration compatible region or regions in thesource process model 110, referred to as constraints 128 or changeconstraints 128 and are used to create a constrained plan 130 by theconstrained plan generator 122. The constrained plan 130, in oneembodiment, comprises the constraints 128 and is used to identify theconstrained activities (incompatible activities). Once the constrainedactivities are identified, the remaining activities (which areunconstrained) are the compatible activities, which are the candidatesused form a migration point set.

A migration compatible region is a set of one or more activities(migration points) where if the process state was extracted from thesource instance and used to create a new instance operating against thetarget model 112, the migrated instance would thenceforward operatecorrectly according to the target model 112. The deltas 126 are analyzedto identify change constraints 128 that constrain the regions of thesource model 110 which are migrateable. The delta analysis techniques toidentify dependencies between changes, in one embodiment, similarlymirror the model comparison methods. Whatever the approach, the resultof the comparison and analysis stages is to identify any changeconstraints.

The constrained plan 130 is used by the migration plan generator 124, atstep 208, to package the migration points in a migration plan 132. Themigration plan analyzer 134 analyzes the migration plan 132. Acustomized migration plan generator 138, based on the analysis of themigration plan 132, configures the plan 132, at step 210, with domainspecific migration policies 136, which drive the execution of themigration plan 132. The migration plan configured with domain specificmigration policies 136 can be referred to as a customized migration plan140.

In practice, the model time analysis (model comparison and analysis,developer supplied supplemental information) is much more involved andcostly in terms of time and effort than what is required to configureand initiate migration in the run-time environment. This asymmetrybetween the effort of model comparison and analysis compared with theeffort to initiate migration means that it is preferable tocompare/analyze once and operate as needed. Various embodiments use therun-time migration policies 136 to achieve very different migrationbehavior using a common migration plan 132. Migration policies 136 arealso a way to capture and leverage process domain knowledge from themigration administrator. A few non-limiting examples of policies aregiven below in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Policy Controls Scheduling Enable or disable Time & duration ofmigration window Retry interval Expiration Priority High, medium or lowExclusion Skip or exclude Passes Single-Pass or Multi-Pass UnmigrateableSuspend or continue Compliance Model Strict or relaxed Equivalent Enableor disable (trailing wavefronts) Migration Instance Filter Enable ordisable Filter variable, threshold, condition Filter scope(local/global)

The migration orchestrator 142, via the instance evaluator 144 and theinstance migratory 146, at step 212, accurately identifies whethersource process instances are in a compatible or migrateable state as anecessary preliminary step to initiating migration. Migration support,at step 218, can then be carried out if needed. Migration support isimplementation dependent. In general there is instance data associatedwith each running instance that is bound to the workflow template(model). Migration support can be referred to as whatever is needed toextract the instance data from the initial workflow context and use itto generate a new instance with the new workflow model. Since all thedata for the instance is bound to the initial workflow model it needs tobe re-associated with the new model, which is an implementationdependent process.

The components residing in information processing systems 106, 108 cancollectively be referred to as a migration manager 148. Alternatively,the migration manger 148 can include only the components in system 106or system 108, or one or more components from both systems 106, 108. Asdiscussed above, one or more of the components discussed above residingwithin the information processing systems 104, 106, 108 can reside onthe same system, a different system, or all of the components can resideon a single system.

General Overview

The need for migration is generally driven by the introduction ofchange. Depending on the change scenario, some scenarios can takeadvantage of migration; some can require migration. Since all change,including migration, inherently carries some risk, migration willprobably be reserved for process change scenarios which directlymotivate migration.

Process model errors (whether intrinsic to the model or arising fromunforeseen external changes) can take advantage of migration to workaround the problem. Without migration, running instances are doomed torepeat the same error when they reach the problem sequence. Instancesthat have not yet reached the problem section can be migrated to the newmodel; for instances that have already passed the problem section,migration is optional, these instances can continue to run against theoriginal model or they can be migrated depending on preference. In thecase of normal functional evolution, migration can allow runninginstances to take advantage of new functions

However, without a specific compelling requirement for migration, therewill be many change scenarios which will not need to be migrated.Compliance changes however, whether regulatory or business caneffectively mandate migration. A new requirement for additional businesslogic which needs to be applied retroactively to already runningworkflow instances could require migration in order to remain incompliance. Just as not every process model change requires migration,not every instance of a process may need to be migrated. Changes mayonly apply to a subset of the running instances. For example, additionalcredit checking business logic may be needed, but only for loan amountsabove a certain threshold. In this scenario, only those instances whichmatch a certain filter policy need to be migrated; there may be no needto migrate the other instances.

Depending on the exact nature of the model changes, specific instancestates (of the old process model, e.g., source model 110) may or may notbe compatible with the new process model, e.g., target model 112.Various embodiments use the term “compatible state” to refer to a stateof the old model 110 which, if migrated in that state to the new model112, would behave correctly when resumed. In order to accuratelyevaluate the migrateability of any given old process instance, it isfirst necessary to understand which parts of the old process model 110are compatible with the new process model 112.

The migration manager 148 uses the constraint model 130 to identifypotential migration points in the source model 110 that are compatiblewith the new process model 112. In general, the migration manager 148compares and analyzes process model changes to identify changedependencies which create migration constraints. These constraints cancome from control flow changes, data flow changes, changes to theprocess choreography, or can be supplied by the migration developer (forexample semantic changes).

FIG. 3 illustrates a simple dataflow constraint example. The uppersequence 302 details a section of an old process model (e.g., sourcemodel). The lower sequence 304 corresponds to a new process model (e.g.,target model). The new process model has a new variable, Y 306. ActivityF 308 writes the new variable, which later in the sequence activity G310 reads. In this example, ΔD 312 as depends on ΔB 314 and thisdependency creates a migration constraint. For example, if a migrationis attempted inside this constraint group at C 316 the migrated instancewill fail at the new activity G 310 because variable Y 306 is undefined.The migration manager 148 determines that a migration can thereforeoccur before B 318 or after D 320, but not in between. Thus the dataflowconstraint can be used to constrain which activities are potentialmigration points.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a control flow constraint. In thisexample the order of execution has been changed by swapping thepositions of the B and D activities 406, 408, 410, 412. ΔD 414 has adependency on ΔB 416, which forms a dependency group. If migration isattempted at activity C 418 for example, the activity B 406, 410 isexecuted twice and activity D 408, 412 is never be executed. Themigration manager 148 captures the migrateability knowledge in amigration plan 132, which identifies the activities in the source model110 that are potential migration points. It should be noted thatconstraints types can be evaluated and/or determined at model timeand/or at run-time. The migration manager 148 at runtime, in turn, usesthis migration plan 132 to evaluate process instances. Evaluation todetermine whether the instance is currently in a migrateable state isperformed, in one embodiment, prior to the actual migration of theinstance. The migration plan 132 captures the output of the modelcomparison and analysis and the relevant domain knowledge of thedeveloper and specifies the states of the source process model 110 thatare migrateable.

With respect to states of an instance, an activity wavefront 147 is asnapshot of the state of an instance. The wavefront is used, in part, bythe migration manager 148 to determine the current state of an instanceand to evaluate migrateability. For example, FIG. 5 shows one example ofa wavefront. In particular, FIG. 5 shows a plurality of activities andwhere in the workflow the instance is operating. Activities withdiagonal shading such as Activity A 502 have completed their operation.Activities with a shaded box such as Activity D 504 are running.Activities with a non-shaded box such as Activity J 506 are inactive.The dashed line 508 represents a wavefront.

In one embodiment, migration behavior can vary depending on thewavefront's position relative to changes and change groups. In general,migrateable wavefronts can come before, between, or after change groups.FIG. 6 illustrates four possible wavefront scenarios. To distinguishbetween these scenarios at run-time each migrateable activity isannotated with positional attributes that specify whether this activityis leading, inner, or trailing with respect to any change groups. Awavefront is a leading wavefront, or a type I wavefront 602, if all ofthe migrateable wavefront activities come before any change groups 610,612. A wavefront is a constrained wavefront, or a type II wavefront 604,if any wavefront activities are not migrateable. A wavefront is an innerwavefront, or a type III wavefront 606, if any of the migrateablewavefront activities fall between change groups 610, 612. A wavefront isa trailing wavefront, or a type IV wavefront 608, if all of themigrateable wavefront activities fall after any change group 610, 612.

When evaluating an instance, the migration manager 148 takes a wavefrontsnapshot. A type I wavefront is the ideal case from a migration point ofview. The instance has not yet reached any of the model changes and thewavefront is compatible with the new process model. A type II wavefrontincludes one or more constrained activities which are not compatiblewith the new process model. While a constrained wavefront is notmigrateable, the process may be migrateable at some point in the future.

A type III wavefront includes activities which fall between changegroups. A migrated type III wavefront will have bypassed the precedingΔC/ΔE change group, but will pick up the ΔH/ΔK changes. Note that inthis scenario, the migrated instance's process model is a hybrid of theold and new process models. It is incumbent on the migration planning tocorrectly determine that the ΔC/ΔE change group is independent of theΔH/ΔK change group. The flexibility that comes from allowing migrationbetween change groups should be balanced against the need for a correctand complete migration plan.

Finally, a type IV wavefront is a trailing wavefront. All of thewavefront activities are after any changes. Since this type of wavefrontdoes not pick up any model changes after migration it is treated as aspecial case. Depending on the run-time policy instances in this stateare may not be migrated at all since they will behave identically witheither model.

In general, there are two choices of migrateable process states: (1)node and (2) edge. The edge style migration is carried out on thetransition between activities. The node style migration is carried outon those activities that can be suspended (e.g. a receive activitywaiting for a message). There are tradeoffs between these two styles ofmigration. Node migration takes advantages of process idle time tomigrate instances while they are idle. The migration evaluation andtrigger can be performed outside the workflow engine (no engine changesare required). While node migration limits the set of potentialmigrateable activities to those which are suspendable (i.e. have an idleperiod), the large fraction of idle time in long running processes makesthese activities an ideal migration window.

Edge migration, which attempts to migrate on the transition betweenactivities, has a much larger pool of potentially migrateableactivities. However, edge migration requires modifications to theworkflow engine and much tighter integration with the migration logic inorder to coordinate migration during activity transition. Also in orderto deal with parallel flows an edge migration implementation will inpractice also need to support node migration. The discussion below withrespect to one or more embodiments of the present invention utilizesnode migration, which allows the use of existing workflow engineswithout modification. However, other embodiments of the presentinvention can also utilize edge migration as well.

It should be noted that not every instance of a running process may needto be migrated. In some migration scenarios, only a sub-set of instanceswhich match a certain criteria may need to be migrated. In order tofacilitate this, the migration manager 148, in one embodiment, usesinstance filtering to limit which instances are migrateable according tothe value of a variable or variables unique to the specific instancebeing evaluated. In order to use instance filtering, a process variableor variables are selected, in one embodiment, at migration modelcreation time to serve as the filtering variable or variables. Sinceprocess variables may not be valid for every possible migrationwavefront, the migration manager 148 identifies for which activities thefilter variable or variables are valid. Dataflow analysis techniques canbe used to identify the sub-set of activities for which the instancefiltering variable or variables are valid and mark those activities witha filterable attribute.

One or more embodiments of the present invention are applicable to anytype of workflow systems characterized by any type of migrationattributes. On non-limiting example of a workflow system is a workflowsystem characterized by these four migration attributes (1) only alimited subset of allowed process states are migrateable; (2) at anygiven time only a fraction of the instances will be in a migrateablestate; (3) the time required to complete migration of all instances isrelatively long; and (4) there is a requirement to continue operation ofthe process while migration is pending.

Migration should minimize disruption to process availability. There aretwo scopes of availability which are to be considered (1) short term(minimize disruption during migration) and (2) long term (maintainingprocess availability pending migration). In the short term, duringsuspend/migrate/resume, there is a window during which the process isnot available. Relative to the total process duration, this window isvery short and the risk of collision with an external event at this timeis low (but non-zero). The goal is to minimize the duration and impactof this unavailability window.

In the long term, the goal is to maintain, when possible, theavailability of those instances which were not in a migrateable statewhen migration was attempted. This type of availability window while aprocess is pending migration can be very long, depending on the processlifetime and rate of change. The risk of collision of an external eventis much more likely during this window. If the migration manager 148maintains instance availability pending migration, the instancecontinues to run against the old model with the expectation that theinstance will be migrated when it reaches a migrateable state at somepoint in the future.

However, it should be noted that not every migration scenario warrantscontinuous availability. In some cases, the risk of allowing un-migratedinstances to continue to run may out-weigh the need to maintainavailability. In this scenario instances that were not migrateable canbe suspended or stopped. These suspended/stopped instances are thendealt with manually.

Migration Plan Creation

The following is a more detailed discussion on creating a migration plan132. As discussed above, the migration manager 148 first determinesmigration constraints 128. In one embodiment, the migration manager 148determines migration constraints 128 by comparing the source model 110to the target model 112 via the model comparator 114. The delta analyzer116, based on this comparison, identifies the differences 126 betweenthe two (source and target) process models 110, 112. This comparison canbe carried out across multiple dimensions (such as control-flow changes,data-flow changes, choreography changes, fine-grained activity attributechanges or other dimensions relevant to a specific workflow system).Each of these comparisons identifies a relevant difference between thetwo models 110, 112.

Each of the changes is then analyzed via the constraint generator 118 inturn to identify any change dependencies. Each individual change orchange dependency group is a constraint 128 that constrains migration ina region of the source model 110, which corresponds to the change orchange group. These change or change group constraints 128 are the inputwhich is used to create a migration plan 132.

FIG. 7 shows an overview of the steps involved in generating a migrationplan 132. Delta analysis produces a set of change dependencies. Eachchange dependency is a potential migration constraint which mayeliminate a sequence of one or more activities as possible migrationpoints. The migration manager 148 applies these change dependencies tothe source model 110. A change dependency (such as delta C depends ondelta A) is specified in the context of the differences between the twoprocess models 110, 112, i.e., deltas 126. In one embodiment, themigration manager 148 applies each constraint 128, step 702, to thesource model 110 by mapping the constraint endpoints to the matchingsource model activities and then propagates the constraint to allintervening activities which lie between the delta endpoints. In oneembodiment, the migration manager 148 performs this mapping by creatinga copy of the source map and annotates each activity as initiallymigrateable. The mapped endpoint activities of the constraint and allintervening activities are marked as non-migrateable. The source model110 itself is used to identify the possible paths between the endpointsto propagate the constraint.

After applying all the known constraints to the source model 110(constrained source model 704), migration point selection, at step 706,occurs and the remaining activities which are not marked asnot-migrateable are the potential, unconstrained, migration points 708.Depending on the workflow system, a sub-set of activity types will beconsidered migration compatible. A migration approach which performedmigration while an instance is suspended would be limited to migratingonly those activity types which are suspendable. For example, BPELimplementations can suspend the Receive, Pick, Human Task, and Waitactivities. This means that only activities of these four types areeligible as migration points in such a system. The potentialunconstrained migration points are therefore filtered to exclude anyactivity types which are not a migrateable type.

After filtering, the remaining, non-excluded activities form thepossible migration point set. For each migration point 708, themigration manager 148 determines, at step 710, the migration point'sposition relative to the model changes. Migration points which arebefore any change group are labeled as leading migration points; pointswhich fall after all change groups are labeled as trailing; points whichlie between change groups are marked as inner. If instance filtering hasbeen defined for this migration plan, data-flow analysis is used todetermine for each migration possible migration point, whether theinstance filtering variable is valid for that activity; the migrationpoint is marked as either filterable or not-filterable as appropriate.This process creates annotated migration points 712.

Then, the migration points, their positional and filterable attributes,the instance filtering data, and global plan data (such as the sourceand target process identification) are collected, at step 714, into amigration plan 132. This migration plan captures all the relevant modelinformation and clearly defines exactly which activities in the sourcemodel 110 are possible migration points.

Orchestrating Migration

A continuous, long running, migration approach comprises four majorfunctions: scheduling, orchestration, evaluation, and execution.Scheduling defines when and how often migration is attempted.Orchestration operates over the pool of instances, orchestrating theevaluation and execution activities. The evaluation phase examines agiven instance and determines if that instance is currently in amigrateable state. Lastly execution actually carries out all the stepsrequired to move an instance from one process model to another. Theactual techniques of migrating an instance between process models (theExecution phase) is highly implementation dependent.

In the continuous migration model, migration takes place periodicallyduring migration windows. During each window, the current pool ofun-migrated instances is evaluated and those which are currently in amigrateable state are migrated. The migration administrator can decidewhen to schedule these migration windows. For a high priority migrationthe administrator may want the window to start immediately. In a heavilyloaded system, the window may be moved to an off-shift time when moreresources are available to handle migration.

After attempting to migrate an instance pool, some fraction of the oldprocess instances may remain. An important factor to consider is when toretry migration. In other words, what is the optimal retry interval fora given process? Process durations can span many orders of magnitude—theretry interval for a process which runs for months is not the same asfor a process which lasts hours. Selection of a migration retry intervalis an example of process domain knowledge. The migration administratoruses this domain knowledge in selecting the scheduling policy settings.

Any process has migrateability windows that are opportunities when aprocess is in a migrateable state. They can vary greatly in duration,depending on many factors, but are characteristic of (1) the currentstate of the instance; (2) the natural period between events whichchange the process state; and (3) the flexibility of the migration plan.The retry interval is also strongly correlated with the natural periodbetween events that change the process state. For example, a processwith a natural period on the order of a day, might match with a dailyretry interval. An optimal retry interval balances the migrationoverhead/opportunity trade off. A too-short interval means wastedoverhead; a too long interval means wasted migration opportunities.

Other factors could also affect the selection of the retry interval. Themigration priority could drive shorter/longer retry intervals. Off-shiftmigration times might drive retry intervals which are even multiples ofdays. The selection of the retry interval is an example of processdomain knowledge which can be captured as scheduling policies. A longrunning migration task must eventually end. Terminating a migration taskcan result from three causes: all the instances have been migrated(success); administrator intervention; or expiration of the migrationtask. There may be scenarios when some fraction of the instances neverreaches a migrateable state in a reasonable time. To limit the lifetimeof the migration time, an expiration time can be defined (e.g. migrationtask can run for 2 weeks or migration ends by the last day of themonth).

FIG. 8 shows illustrates one example of a migration orchestration flow.The operational flow of FIG. 8 begins at step 802 and flows directly tostep 802. It should be noted that the basic structure is a loop thatiterates over the instances, takes a snapshot of the instance state, andevaluates the migrateability of each instance and determines what actionis appropriate for an instance. The migration manager 148 via themigration orchestrator 143 makes use of an exclude list of instancesthat are excluded from consideration for migration. This list can beempty at the start of a migration task, or it might include a sub-set ofinstance which is manually identified as excluded instances. Duringinstance processing, if the migration manager 148 determines that aninstance is to be excluded from future attempts at migration, it isadded to this list. The list is maintained as an exclusion list 145rather than an inclusion list because the process is continuing to runwhile the migration task is operating and instances may terminate beforemigration is attempted.

The migration manager 148, at step 804, initializes the excluded list.The migration manager 148, at step 806, retrieves a list of thecurrently running, non-excluded instances. The migration manager 148, atstep 808, determines if this list is empty. If this list is empty thenthe migration is finished at step 810. If the list is not empty, themigration manager 148, at step 812, calculates the next time of the nextmigration window according to the scheduling policies 136 selected bythe migration administrator. This may be immediately or it may be atsome point in the future. At this point, the migration manager 148, atstep 814, determines if the migration task has expired yet. If the taskhas expired, the migration is finished at step 810. If the task has notexpired, the migration manager 148, at step 816, sleeps the migrationtask, if necessary, until the scheduled migration window start time.

Once the scheduled time (if any) has been reached, the migration manager148, at step 818, again retrieves the current list of the running,non-excluded instances. This step is repeated because the pool ofrunning instances may have changed while the migration task was waitingfor the scheduled migration window to start. This list is then processediteratively, processing each running instance. At the top of the loop,the migration manager 148, at step 820, checks if the list is empty(either because there were no more running non-excluded instances toprocess or because the loop has processed all the instances in thelist). If the list is empty, the migration manager 148, at step 822,determines if a single pass policy is implemented. If so, the migrationprocess is finished at step 824. If not, i.e., a multi-pass policy isimplemented, the migration manager 148 starts the outer orchestrationloop again (i.e., the control flow returns to step 806).

The single pass policy means that the migration manager 148 only makes asingle pass through the running instances; the multiple pass policymeans that the migration manager 148 will process the running processesmultiple times until all instances are handled or the task expires. Ifthe list is not empty, the migration manager 148, at step 826, obtainsthe next instance from the list and evaluates and processes the currentinstance at step 828. FIGS. 9 and 10 illustrate various examples forperforming this evaluation and processing operation. Instanceevaluation, in one embodiment, comprises analyzing any migrationpolicies selected by an administrator and/or the migration manager 148,evaluating the migration plan 132, and analyzing the instance's currentstate via the wavefront of the instance. This results in a migrationdecision for the instance. The migration manager 148, at step 830,updates the list of instances to be analyzed for migration based on theevaluation and processing operation of step 828. For example, thecurrent instance can be excluded from migration and, therefore, removedfrom the list, be determined as migrateable and subsequently removedfrom the list, etc. The control flow the returns to step 820.

FIGS. 9 and 10 illustrate various examples of processing an instance.The operational flow of FIG. 9 begins at step 902 and flows directly tostep 904. The basic structure is a loop which iterates over theinstances, takes a snapshot of the instance state and evaluates themigrateability of each instance. Instances which are not migrateable areskipped. Instances which are migrateable are migrated. Depending onpolicy choices, unmigrateable instances can be suspended or allowed tocontinue to run. Policy also specifies whether an unmigrated instance isexcluded from future attempts.

The migration manager 148, at step 904, obtains the wavefront 147associated with the instance to be processed. The migration manager 148,at step 906, evaluates the wavefront 147. The migration manager 148, atstep 908, determines if the instance is migrateable. If the result ofthis determination is negative, then the migration manager 148, at step910, determines if this instance should be skipped. If the result ofthis determination is positive, the migration manager 148 skips theinstance and the control then flows to entry point B where processing iscontinued at step 904. If the result of this determination is negative,the migration manager 148, at step 912, excludes the instance frommigration by removing the instance from the queue. The control thenflows to entry point B where processing is continued at step 904. Whendetermining whether to skip the instance, the migration manager 148 canalso determine to suspend the instance at step 914. The control thenflows to step 912.

Returning to step 908, if the migration manager 148 determines that theinstance is migrateable then the migration manager 148, at step 916,suspends operation of the instance. It should be noted that there is alatency window between the time when the migration manager 148 takes theinstance state snapshot, and the time when the migration manager 148eventually attempts migration, during which it is possible for theinstance state to have changed. For a long running process, thelikelihood of collision of an external event with this latency window islow, but non-zero. To protect against this, if (and only if) theinstance is migrateable the migration manager 148 adds an extra sequenceafter suspending operation of the instance. After suspending theinstance, in anticipation of migrating it, the migration manager 148, atstep 918, takes a second snapshot of the instance's wavefront andcompares this with the first wavefront snapshot.

If these two wavefronts are not the same, then the migration manager 148has detected an event collision and this instance is no longer known tobe in a migrateable state. The instance, at step 920, is resumed and itcan be re-evaluated at some point in the future. If the two snapshotsmatch then migration, at step 922, is carried out on the suspendedinstance and the instance is removed from the queue at step 912. Thealternative of suspending before every evaluation, in some embodiments,is not warranted given the low likelihood of an event collision and thedesire to maximize process availability. Since the additional overheadof taking the second snapshot and the compare is small and is onlycarried if the process instance passes the evaluation screening thisapproach minimizes the cost of collision detection.

It should be noted that at evaluation time, determining whether anygiven instance is migrateable, in one embodiment, rests on three pillars(1) the current state of the process instance, (2) the model knowledgeembodied in the migration plan, and (3) any applicable migrationpolicies that can shape the migration decision. The migration plan 132,created at modeling time, captures the process model and processmigration knowledge. The migration administrator can specify themigration policies 136 to fine tune the migration behavior. Thewavefront 147 captures the current state of the process instance. Themigration manager 148 via the instance evaluator 144 leverages thesethree data sets to evaluate the migrateability of any process instance.

FIG. 10 shows one example of an instance evaluation flow. Theoperational flow diagram of FIG. 10 begins at step 1002 and flowsdirectly to step 1004. Given a wavefront 147 the migration manager 148,at step 1004, verifies that all the wavefront activities aremigrateable. If the result of this decision is negative, the migrationmanager 148, at step 1006, determines whether to suspend the migrationprocess. If the result of this determination is positive, the migrationprocess is determined to be suspended at step 1008. The control flowthen flows to entry point A of FIG. 8 where this suspending process isperformed. The unmigrateable policy can be used to automatically suspendinstances which cannot be migrated. The control flow then flows to entrypoint A of FIG. 8. If the result of this determination is negative, themigration manager 148, at step 1018, determines that the instance is tobe skipped once and the control flows to entry point A of FIG. 8, wherethis skipping operation is performed.

If the wavefront 147 is potentially migrateable, the migration manager148 applies various run-time policies to provide finer grained migrationcontrol. The output of the evaluation algorithm is one of four outcomes:migrate, suspend, skip, or exclude. For example, the migration manager148, at step 1012, determines whether to apply filtering operations. Iffiltering operations are to be applied the control flows to step 1014.If filtering operations are not applied the control flows to step 1028.The filtering logic allows the migration manager 148 to migrate only asubset of the instances (e.g. only gold customers or only thoseinstances with a credit score below a given threshold). To supportfiltering, the migration developer chooses a process variable to use asthe filter variable. At run-time the migration administrator can enableor disable filtering and can supply the filter threshold value and thefilter condition (e.g. equal to “gold” or below 400).

Since the filter function is a function of a variable or parameter ofthe process model, the migration manager 148 accommodates wavefrontscenarios and determines whether the filtering variable is valid orinvalid. An invalid filtering variable may not yet be defined or may notyet be initialized. Activities in the process model for which thefiltering variable is valid were marked with a filterable attribute atmodel time. Filterable activities support instance filtering.

The migration manager 148, at step 1014, determines if all theactivities where filterable. If the result of this determination isnegative, determines whether the filter scope is local or global. If thefilter scope is local the migration manager, at step 1018, determinesthat the instance is to be skipped one time. The control flow then flowsto entry point A of FIG. 8 where the skipping process is performed. Ifthe filter scope is global then the control flows to step 1028. Thefilter scope (global/local) determines the behavior of non-filterableactivities when filtering is enabled. If the scope is set to local, onlyfilterable activities are migrateable (if the filter matches);non-filterable activities are not migrateable. The global filter scopemeans that while filterable activities are migrateable only if thefilter matches, non-filterable activities are always migrateable.

For example, instance variables in workflows typically have scopes orregions of the workflow where they are defined and/or valid. As anexample, if the fourth activity in a workflow initializes the xvariable, then for the first three activities the x variable is notdefined. If the x variable is to be used for filtering instances then anundefined state occurs for those first activities and any other activityfor which the variable is not valid. The migration manager 148, in oneembodiment, manages this situation by first determining if all theactivities are annotated as filterable in the migration plan 132. Inother words, the migration manager 148 determines if the instancefiltering variable(s) are all valid for all the activities in thewavefront 147.

If the filter scope is local than the migration manager 148 onlyattempts to migrate activities for which the instance filter can beevaluated for (e.g., if only the gold customers are to be migrated andnot silver or bronze and it is unknown if an instance belongs to a goldcustomer then the migration manager 148 waits until it reaches the pointin the process where the customer type variable has been defined.) Ifhowever, the migration manager 148 is to migrate all instances where thecustomer type is unknown (e.g. early in the process) and only limitmigration for the scope of the process where the instance filteringvariable(s) are defined the global filter policy can be used. The globalfilter policy, in one embodiment, indicates that if all the activitiesin the wavefront 147 are annotated as filterable then the filter isevaluated and used to control the decision. If any of the activities inthe wavefront 147 are not filterable and the global policy is set thenthe evaluation ignores instance filtering and makes the migrationdecision as if filtering was disable.

Returning to step 1014, if the result of this determination is positive,the migration manager 148, at step 1022 evaluates the filter. Forexample, as discussed above, an administrator (or the migration manager148 itself) can select one or more instance variables to be the filtervariables and migration points are filtered based on these filtervariables if the migration points are annotated in the migration plan132 as filterable. If the filter matches then the control flows to step1028. If the filter does not match then the migration manager at step1024 determines if the exclusion for this instance is a multiple orsingle pass, as discussed above with respect to FIG. 8. If the exclusionpass is a single pass then the migration manager 148, at step 1026,determines that the instance is to be excluded from migration and thecontrol flow then flows to entry point A of FIG. 8. The evaluationprocess of step 828 in FIG. 8 can then perform the exclusion operation.The exclusion policy determines what happens to instances which fail oneof the wavefront tests; if a single exclusion the instance is excludedfrom future migration attempts. If the exclusion pass is a multiple passthen the control flows to step 1018 where the instance is determined toonly be skipped once. The control flow then flows to entry point A ofFIG. 8 where the skipping operation can be performed.

The migration manager 148, at step 1028, determines if any of theactivities are inner activities. If the result of this determination ispositive, then the migration manager 148, at step 1030, determineswhether a strict model is to be used. For example, based on FIG. 6,there are four changes which create two constraint groups in the initialmodel. If type I activities such as activity B are migrated then themigrated instance will operate an A-M sequence. The A-M sequence isidentical to the new workflow instance since A and B in the initialworkflow model are not changed relative to the new workflow model.Similarly, for type IV instances, migrated at L or M will operate an A-Msequence identical to the old model. Both of these scenarios fall intothe strict model, because for these cases all instances will behaveaccording to the initial or the new workflow model. However type IIIinstances will have executed some activities in the old model beforemigration that are changed in the new model. Thus, the sequence of theseinstances will be neither the initial nor the new workflow model, butinstead some hybrid of the two. This is the relaxed case. In the strictcase, the migration manager 148 assures that the path of every migratedinstance follows one of the defined workflow models; in the relaxed casethe migration manager 148 allows migrated instances to operate a hybridof the two models, while still obeying any change constraints betweenthe two models.

Returning to FIG. 10, if a strict model is to be used then the controlflows to step 1024. If a strict model is not used then the control flowsto step 1032. The migration manager 148, at step 1032 determines if allof the activities are trailing activities. Instances that have passedall model change groups will behave the same whether they are migratedor not. Depending on the equivalent migration policy, migrating trailingwavefronts can be selectively enabled or disabled. If all of theactivities are trailing activities then the migration manager 148, atstep 1034, determines if they are equivalent.

For example, based on FIG. 6, activities L and M are trailing activities(type IV); that is they fall after all changes between the initial andnew workflow models. Since these activities are after all the changes,trailing instances behave no differently before or after migration.Since there is not a new model benefit to migrating these instances themigration manager 148 can use a policy to decide whether to migratethese instances or not. If equivalent migration is enabled then trailinginstances are migrateable, if disabled they are not. For example, if anadministrator wants to consolidate resources by removing the initialworkflow model then all the instances are migrated including trailingones and equivalent Migration is set to true. If an administrator wantsto migrate to pick up a change in the model and does not care aboutremoving the old workflow model then equivalent Migration is disabled.Thus, only those instances that pick up changes in the new model aremigrated. Trailing instances then run to completion against the initialmodel.

Returning to FIG. 10, if the activities are not equivalent, the controlflows to step 1024. If the activities are equivalent, the control flowsto step 1036. If all of the activities are not trailing activities, themigration manager 148, at step 1036, determines that the instance is tobe migrated. The control flow then flows to entry point A of FIG. 8.

As can be seen from the discussion above, one or more embodiments of thepresent invention provide a processes migration model as a policy drivencontinuous, long running, process. The data necessary to evaluatewhether any instance is currently migrateable at model creation time iscaptured and conveyed to the run-time environment in a migration plan. Amigration administrator can define migration policies, which configurethe continuous migration process. The continuous migration modelexplicitly addresses the four main problems of managing migration:scheduling, orchestration, evaluation, and execution. Designingmigration as a continuous process itself enables process instancemigration to be performed across models; maintain continuous processavailability; and deliver a powerful, flexible migration model which candeal with a broad range of migration scenarios. Using a policy model tofine tune the run-time migration behavior means that the same model'smigration plan can be reused as migration requirements change over time.

Information Processing System

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating detailed view an informationprocessing system 1100 according to one embodiment of the presentinvention. The information processing system 1100 can be any one of theinformation processing systems 104, 106, 108 in FIG. 1 and can compriseany of the components discussed above with respect to these systems. Theinformation processing system 1100 is based upon a suitably configuredprocessing system adapted to implement one or more embodiments of thepresent invention. Any suitably configured processing system issimilarly able to be used as the information processing system 1100 byembodiments of the present invention.

The information processing system 1100 includes a computer 102. Thecomputer 102 has a processor(s) 1104 that is connected to a main memory106, mass storage interface 1108, and network adapter hardware 1110. Asystem bus 1112 interconnects these system components. The mass storageinterface 1108 is used to connect mass storage devices, such as datastorage device 1114, to the information processing system 1100. Onespecific type of data storage device is an optical drive such as aCD/DVD drive, which may be used to store data to and read data from acomputer readable medium or storage product such as (but not limited to)a CD/DVD 1116. Another type of data storage device is a data storagedevice configured to support, for example, NTFS type file systemoperations.

The main memory 1106, in one embodiment, comprises the migration manger148 at least a portion of the migration manager 148, as discussed above.Although illustrated as concurrently resident in the main memory 1106,it is clear that respective components of the main memory 1106 are notrequired to be completely resident in the main memory 1106 at all timesor even at the same time. In one embodiment, the information processingsystem 1100 utilizes conventional virtual addressing mechanisms to allowprograms to behave as if they have access to a large, single storageentity, referred to herein as a computer system memory, instead ofaccess to multiple, smaller storage entities such as the main memory1106 and data storage device 1116. Note that the term “computer systemmemory” is used herein to generically refer to the entire virtual memoryof the information processing system 1100.

Although only one CPU 1104 is illustrated for computer 1102, computersystems with multiple CPUs can be used equally effectively. Variousembodiments of the present invention further incorporate interfaces thateach includes separate, fully programmed microprocessors that are usedto off-load processing from the CPU 404. An operating system (not shown)included in the main memory is a suitable multitasking operating systemsuch as the Linux, UNIX, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 operatingsystem. Various embodiments of the present invention are able to use anyother suitable operating system. Some embodiments of the presentinvention utilize architectures, such as an object oriented frameworkmechanism, that allow instructions of the components of operating system(not shown) to be executed on any processor located within theinformation processing system 1100. The network adapter hardware 1110 isused to provide an interface to one or more networks 102. Variousembodiments of the present invention are able to be adapted to work withany data communications connections including present day analog and/ordigital techniques or via a future networking mechanism.

Although the exemplary embodiments of the present invention aredescribed in the context of a fully functional computer system, thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that embodiments are capable of beingdistributed as a program product via CD or DVD, e.g. CD 1116, CD ROM, orother form of recordable media, or via any type of electronictransmission mechanism.

Non-Limiting Examples

Although specific embodiments of the invention have been disclosed,those having ordinary skill in the art will understand that changes canbe made to the specific embodiments without departing from the spiritand scope of the invention. The scope of the invention is not to berestricted, therefore, to the specific embodiments, and it is intendedthat the appended claims cover any and all such applications,modifications, and embodiments within the scope of the presentinvention.

Although the various example embodiments of the present invention havebeen discussed in the context of a fully functional computer system,those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that variousembodiments are capable of being distributed as a program product via CDor DVD, e.g. CD 124, CD ROM, or other form of recordable media, or viaany type of electronic transmission mechanism.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer implemented method for managingworkflow instance migration, the computer implemented method comprising:receiving, with a migration manager comprising at least one computerinstruction stored in a memory and executed by a processor of aninformation processing system, a migration plan indicating a set ofworkflow migration points associated with an initial workflow processmodel that are migrateable to a new workflow process model, wherein theset of workflow migration points are associated with a set of workflowactivities of the initial workflow model; running, with a run-timeenvironment, at least one hundred independent workflow instancessupporting a business critical application; selecting, with themigration manager, at least one workflow instance from a set of workflowinstances that are simultaneously independently running at differentworkflow points during run-time, wherein each workflow instance in theset of workflow instances is an instantiation of the initial workflowprocess model and is operating at least one workflow activity in theinitial workflow process model; determining, with the migration manager,based at least on the set of workflow migration points and theassociated set of workflow activities being annotated in the migrationplan as filterable or not-filterable and on a current state of one ormore migration process filters, a current migrateability stateassociated with the workflow instance that has been selected; granting,with the migration manager, in response to determining that the currentmigrateability state is set to migrateable, migration of the workflowinstance to the new workflow process model; preventing, with themigration manager, in response to determining that the currentmigrateability state fails to be set to migrateable, migration of theworkflow instance to the new workflow process model for at least a givenamount of time; and iterating, by the migration manager, over the atleast one hundred independent workflow instances to determine thecurrent migrateability state of each of the workflow instances due tochanges in the independent workflow instances that occur and to ensurecontinuous availability of the business critical application bymigrating a workflow instance only when the workflow instance has acurrent migrateability state that is set to migrateable based at leaston the set of workflow migration points.
 2. The computer implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein determining the current migrateability stateassociated with the workflow instance that has been selected furthercomprises: capturing a wavefront associated with the workflow instance,wherein the wavefront at least indicates a current position of theworkflow instance within the initial workflow process model.
 3. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 2, wherein determining the currentmigrateability state associated with the workflow instance that has beenselected further comprises: determining, based on the wavefront and aset of migration point positional information in the migration plan, ifthe position of the workflow instance is one of: before allnon-migrateable areas of the initial workflow process model; after atleast one non-migrateable area and before at least one non-migrateablearea of the initial workflow process model; and after allnon-migrateable areas of the initial workflow process model.
 4. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 2, wherein determining the currentmigrateability state associated with the workflow instance that has beenselected further comprises: determining if the wavefront associated withthe workflow instance comprises any activities that are incompatiblewith the new workflow process model.
 5. The computer implemented methodof claim 1, wherein the granting, in response to determining that thecurrent migrateability state is set to migrateable, migration of theworkflow instance to the new workflow process model further comprises:suspending the workflow instance from operating for a given amount oftime; determining a new current migrateability state associated with theworkflow instance after the given amount of time has passed; andmigrating the workflow activity to the new workflow process in responseto determining that the new current migrateability state being set tomigrateable.
 6. The computer implemented method of claim 5, whereindetermining the new current migrateability state associated with theworkflow instance further comprises: retrieving a first wavefrontassociated with the workflow instance, wherein the first wavefront wasgenerated prior to the workflow instance being suspended and at leastindicates a position of the workflow instance within the initialworkflow process with respect to one or more non-migrateable areas ofthe initial workflow process model prior to being suspended; capturing asecond wavefront associated with the workflow instance after the givenamount of time has passed; comparing the first wavefront to the secondwavefront; and migrating, based on the comparing, the workflow instanceto the new workflow process model in response to the first wavefrontsubstantially matching the second wavefront.
 7. The computer implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein selecting at least one workflow instance froma set of workflow instance, further comprises: identifying, based on themigration plan at least one workflow instance filtering criterion;identifying a sub-set of workflow instances from the set of workflowinstances that substantially satisfy the workflow instance filteringcriterion; and selecting the at least one workflow instance from thesub-set of workflow instances.
 8. An information processing system formanaging workflow instance migration, the information processing systemcomprising: a memory; a processor communicatively coupled to the memory;and a migration manger comprising at least one computer instructionstored in the memory and executed by the processor, wherein themigration manager is adapted to: receive a migration plan indicating aset of workflow migration points associated with an initial workflowprocess model that are migrateable to a new workflow process model,wherein the set of workflow migration points are associated with a setof workflow activities of the initial workflow model; run, with arun-time environment, at least one hundred independent workflowinstances supporting a business critical application; select at leastone workflow instance from a set of workflow instances that aresimultaneously independently running at different workflow points duringrun-time, wherein each workflow instance in the set of workflowinstances is an instantiation of the initial workflow process model andis operating at least one of activity in the initial workflow processmodel; determine, based at least on the set of workflow migration pointsand the associated set of workflow activities being annotated in themigration plan as filterable or not-filterable and on a current state ofone or more migration process filters, a current migrateability stateassociated with the workflow instance that has been selected; grant, inresponse to determining that the current migrateability state is set tomigrateable, migration of the workflow instance to the new workflowprocess model; and prevent, in response to determining that the currentmigrateability state fails to be set to migrateable, migration of theworkflow instance to the new workflow process model for at least a givenamount of time; and iterate, by the migration manager, over the at leastone hundred independent workflow instances to determine the currentmigrateability state of each of the workflow instances due to changes inthe independent workflow instances that occur and to ensure continuousavailability of the business critical application by migrating aworkflow instance only when the workflow instance has a currentmigrateability state that is set to migrateable based at least on theset of workflow migration points.
 9. The information processing systemof claim 8, wherein the migration manager is adapted to determine thecurrent migrateability state associated with the workflow instance thathas been selected by: capturing a wavefront associated with the workflowinstance, wherein the wavefront at least indicates a current position ofthe workflow instance within the initial workflow process model.
 10. Theinformation processing system of claim 9, wherein the migration manageris further adapted to determine the current migrateability stateassociated with the workflow instance that has been selected by:determining, based on the wavefront and a set of migration pointpositional information in the migration plan, if the position of theworkflow instance is one of: before all non-migrateable areas of theinitial workflow process model; after at least one non-migrateable areaand before at least one non-migrateable area of the initial workflowprocess model; and after all non-migrateable areas of the initialworkflow process model.
 11. A computer implemented method for managingworkflow instance migration, the computer implemented method comprising:receiving, with a migration manger comprising at least one computerinstruction stored in a memory and executed by a processor of aninformation processing system, a migration plan indicating a set ofworkflow migration points associated with an initial workflow processmodel that are migrateable to a new workflow process model, wherein theset of workflow migration points are associated with a set of workflowactivities of the initial workflow model; running, with a run-timeenvironment, at least one hundred independent workflow instancessupporting a business critical application; selecting, with themigration manager, at least one workflow instance from a set of workflowinstances that are simultaneously independently running at differentworkflow points during run-time, wherein each workflow instance in theset of workflow instances is an instantiation of the initial workflowprocess model and is operating at least one workflow activity in theinitial workflow process model; determining, with the migration manager,based at least on the set of workflow migration points, and theassociated set of workflow activities being annotated in the migrationplan as filterable or not-filterable and on a current state of one ormore migration process filters, a current migrateability stateassociated with the workflow instance that has been selected; iterating,by the migration manager, over the at least one hundred independentworkflow instances to determine the current migrateability state of eachof the workflow instances due to changes in the independent workflowinstances that occur and to ensure continuous availability of thebusiness critical application by migrating a workflow instance only whenthe workflow instance has a current migrateability state that is set tomigrateable based at least on the set of workflow migration points.